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ADHD to autism...?
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<blockquote data-quote="buddy" data-source="post: 587980" data-attributes="member: 12886"><p>HI! I'm so glad your therapist is seeing the bigger picture because those multiple symptoms often do come under the Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) umbrella and very often therapy is just much more tailored to meet a difficult child's needs when people who really are trained to work with people who think like a person with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) thinks, things start improving so much. </p><p></p><p>First, over simplified laymans terms for the testing......the tests are broken into two big categories here....the things we do using language/verbal skills and the things we do using non verbal skills. Your difficult child does much better using his non verbal skills. That is quite common in Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) as is a varied pattern of higher scores and lower scores on testing. People with general delays tend to be low across the board (in general) and people with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) tend to have some high areas and some lower areas.</p><p></p><p>In terms of where to go...</p><p></p><p>Schools do not medically diagnose. What is done for an IEP/special education is to test areas and that can include analysis and consideration of outside medical testing....then they must use criteria for each of several special education categories. There is an Autism Spectrum Disorder category in special education. That is why it gets confusing...but it is not a medical diagnosis even if the district has a marvelous autism team and does a better evaluation than a medical team (that DOES happen, it just depends where you live and what is available). In our area it is very common to hear a parent say, my child has a school label of Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) but not a medical label or for my son, he has both the school and medical label of Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD). Your son was put in an educational category (and if it is adhd then that means the medical information that says he has adhd was considered in his placement)...so he is likely in the educational category of OHI (other health impairments..sometimes worded a little differently among states) or EBD (emotional and behavioral disorder.....again can vary a little in the terminology) if the anxiety diagnosis was considered.... </p><p>You can call an IEP meeting at any time and you can request assessment at any time. Does your district have an autism team? Or an autism specialist in the district that travels to schools for assessments when autism is suspected? That is a good first question and then when you make your request for re-evaluation to consider placement under the Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) category and Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) programming....you can specifically ask for those people to be a part of the team. </p><p></p><p>Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) has been used as the category for all kids on the spectrum in the schools, no separation between non verbal very delayed kids versus kids who have Asperger's. But then when it comes time to develop the IEP individual levels and skills are used for placement into a specific program and many schools have separate programs for students depending on their functioning level.</p><p></p><p>Soon the medical diagnoses will be changing too....so it will match the term the schools use....the general Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) (autism spectrum disorder) diagnosis. It hasn't happened yet but it will soon. Until that change, in a medical or private center the terms are Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD) (pervasive developmental disorder) as the broad term and under that the separate categories of Autism, Aspergers, Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD)- not otherwise specified (not otherwise specified) and a couple of others that are not your situation. So do not be confused....it all means Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD).</p><p></p><p>If he has an IEP it is a good thing. A 504 plan is another plan for people who have special needs but it does not involve making goals and objectives and accommodations that are measured and monitored by special education professionals. People dont have both. In your case it is good you have the IEP so that you have specific rights and they must work to individualize his educational plan as well as to help work on his social and behavioral needs in a way that develops/teaches appropriate skills. You do not need to consider anything to do with a 504, so take that off your plate.</p><p></p><p>So, you ask what to do??? </p><p></p><p>in my humble opinion, you will need to do both, approach this on the medical/private front and the school front. </p><p></p><p>It often helps to have the medical front approached first because that information is powerful in a school setting. If you have specialty clinics near you absolutely use them. Get your name on the list asap. If they say it is years of course that is too long. But at this point you likely wont get it done before the end of school.... Very often insurance does cover the clinics like this if they are medical clinics with MD and PhD people leading them. If you can't find one then there is also the neuropsychologist route. That too can be a long wait. With the evidence you already have, I'd want personally to connect to an autism specialty clinic because then you will have connections for therapy too.</p><p></p><p>You can decide, you can wait until this is done or you can start now and submit an evaluation request to the school. Since he is already in Special Education, if you feel things are going better this year, you might want to get all your ducks in a row and be able to have all of the medical evidence you can to bring to that evaluation. Maybe work on that now and through the summer and then right away, at the beginning of the year turn in that written re-evaluation request for purposes of changing the educational category.</p><p></p><p>Will he be going to ESY? (extended school year....which is special education that goes on during the summer)? </p><p></p><p>His play and language and social skills as well as behaviors do sound very much like they are on the spectrum from afar, across the internet....of course that is just an informal opinion. But how many times do we see this on the board??? Kids start out with the ADHD, plus anxiety or ODD and often the sensory processing disorder (SPD) diagnosis..... and all of these things are very common symptoms under the Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) umbrella.</p><p></p><p>The bottom line is that (hopefully, we all know of exceptions) Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) programs already are set up and planning ahead that their students have these challenges. Their whole method of operation is to address these kinds of things. For example, in the autism classes, if there is a surprise fire drill....the principal knows to alert those teachers and ear protection is given to all of the kids and often they are told of it so that there are not meltdowns. The class is set up to provide appropriate visual supports since so many of the kids have trouble with verbal language and communication. They explain things in a way that goes step by step directly teaching even the parts of school rules and activities that other kids are not told about like not just walking in line but how far away your body needs to be and then they practice that to learn the skill. They know they often have organizational challenges so it is just a common part of the whole class to arrange things and keep it very very routine.</p><p></p><p>So, even if the thought is...maybe he does not have Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) but he has all these challenges that many Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) folks have....well,would an Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) program be a good learning fit? </p><p></p><p>That is what I decided...it didn't matter to me if someone wanted to say it was all the brain injury stuff. He met the criteria for Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) and he learned best in an environment that addressed those learning needs and styles so Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) was a fine category for him to be in on his IEP. (he happened to also meet medical criteria so has both the school label and medical diagnosis too, I just didn't want to accept it at first, that quickly went away when I saw how much better thing went and was able to get therapies for him that really were effective)</p><p></p><p>I hope I didn't make things more confusing....you have a lot on your plate but all in all, in my humble opinion this is good news because each little crisis and behavior and skill deficit wont have to be looked at individually...if it comes out he has the Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) category my hope for you and him is that he will be with people who really get it.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="buddy, post: 587980, member: 12886"] HI! I'm so glad your therapist is seeing the bigger picture because those multiple symptoms often do come under the Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) umbrella and very often therapy is just much more tailored to meet a difficult child's needs when people who really are trained to work with people who think like a person with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) thinks, things start improving so much. First, over simplified laymans terms for the testing......the tests are broken into two big categories here....the things we do using language/verbal skills and the things we do using non verbal skills. Your difficult child does much better using his non verbal skills. That is quite common in Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) as is a varied pattern of higher scores and lower scores on testing. People with general delays tend to be low across the board (in general) and people with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) tend to have some high areas and some lower areas. In terms of where to go... Schools do not medically diagnose. What is done for an IEP/special education is to test areas and that can include analysis and consideration of outside medical testing....then they must use criteria for each of several special education categories. There is an Autism Spectrum Disorder category in special education. That is why it gets confusing...but it is not a medical diagnosis even if the district has a marvelous autism team and does a better evaluation than a medical team (that DOES happen, it just depends where you live and what is available). In our area it is very common to hear a parent say, my child has a school label of Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) but not a medical label or for my son, he has both the school and medical label of Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD). Your son was put in an educational category (and if it is adhd then that means the medical information that says he has adhd was considered in his placement)...so he is likely in the educational category of OHI (other health impairments..sometimes worded a little differently among states) or EBD (emotional and behavioral disorder.....again can vary a little in the terminology) if the anxiety diagnosis was considered.... You can call an IEP meeting at any time and you can request assessment at any time. Does your district have an autism team? Or an autism specialist in the district that travels to schools for assessments when autism is suspected? That is a good first question and then when you make your request for re-evaluation to consider placement under the Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) category and Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) programming....you can specifically ask for those people to be a part of the team. Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) has been used as the category for all kids on the spectrum in the schools, no separation between non verbal very delayed kids versus kids who have Asperger's. But then when it comes time to develop the IEP individual levels and skills are used for placement into a specific program and many schools have separate programs for students depending on their functioning level. Soon the medical diagnoses will be changing too....so it will match the term the schools use....the general Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) (autism spectrum disorder) diagnosis. It hasn't happened yet but it will soon. Until that change, in a medical or private center the terms are Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD) (pervasive developmental disorder) as the broad term and under that the separate categories of Autism, Aspergers, Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD)- not otherwise specified (not otherwise specified) and a couple of others that are not your situation. So do not be confused....it all means Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD). If he has an IEP it is a good thing. A 504 plan is another plan for people who have special needs but it does not involve making goals and objectives and accommodations that are measured and monitored by special education professionals. People dont have both. In your case it is good you have the IEP so that you have specific rights and they must work to individualize his educational plan as well as to help work on his social and behavioral needs in a way that develops/teaches appropriate skills. You do not need to consider anything to do with a 504, so take that off your plate. So, you ask what to do??? in my humble opinion, you will need to do both, approach this on the medical/private front and the school front. It often helps to have the medical front approached first because that information is powerful in a school setting. If you have specialty clinics near you absolutely use them. Get your name on the list asap. If they say it is years of course that is too long. But at this point you likely wont get it done before the end of school.... Very often insurance does cover the clinics like this if they are medical clinics with MD and PhD people leading them. If you can't find one then there is also the neuropsychologist route. That too can be a long wait. With the evidence you already have, I'd want personally to connect to an autism specialty clinic because then you will have connections for therapy too. You can decide, you can wait until this is done or you can start now and submit an evaluation request to the school. Since he is already in Special Education, if you feel things are going better this year, you might want to get all your ducks in a row and be able to have all of the medical evidence you can to bring to that evaluation. Maybe work on that now and through the summer and then right away, at the beginning of the year turn in that written re-evaluation request for purposes of changing the educational category. Will he be going to ESY? (extended school year....which is special education that goes on during the summer)? His play and language and social skills as well as behaviors do sound very much like they are on the spectrum from afar, across the internet....of course that is just an informal opinion. But how many times do we see this on the board??? Kids start out with the ADHD, plus anxiety or ODD and often the sensory processing disorder (SPD) diagnosis..... and all of these things are very common symptoms under the Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) umbrella. The bottom line is that (hopefully, we all know of exceptions) Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) programs already are set up and planning ahead that their students have these challenges. Their whole method of operation is to address these kinds of things. For example, in the autism classes, if there is a surprise fire drill....the principal knows to alert those teachers and ear protection is given to all of the kids and often they are told of it so that there are not meltdowns. The class is set up to provide appropriate visual supports since so many of the kids have trouble with verbal language and communication. They explain things in a way that goes step by step directly teaching even the parts of school rules and activities that other kids are not told about like not just walking in line but how far away your body needs to be and then they practice that to learn the skill. They know they often have organizational challenges so it is just a common part of the whole class to arrange things and keep it very very routine. So, even if the thought is...maybe he does not have Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) but he has all these challenges that many Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) folks have....well,would an Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) program be a good learning fit? That is what I decided...it didn't matter to me if someone wanted to say it was all the brain injury stuff. He met the criteria for Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) and he learned best in an environment that addressed those learning needs and styles so Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) was a fine category for him to be in on his IEP. (he happened to also meet medical criteria so has both the school label and medical diagnosis too, I just didn't want to accept it at first, that quickly went away when I saw how much better thing went and was able to get therapies for him that really were effective) I hope I didn't make things more confusing....you have a lot on your plate but all in all, in my humble opinion this is good news because each little crisis and behavior and skill deficit wont have to be looked at individually...if it comes out he has the Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) category my hope for you and him is that he will be with people who really get it. [/QUOTE]
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